
>MMEMORATIVE TRIBUTE TO 

BARRETT WENDELL 

By JAMES FORD RHODES 



PREPARED FOR 

THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF 
ARTS AND LETTERS 

H 1921 




AMERICAN ACADEMY OF 

ARTS AND LETTERS 

1922 



COMMEMORATIVE TRIBUTE TO 

BARRETT WENDELL 

By JAMES FORD RHODES J 



PREPARED FOR 

THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF 
ARTS AND LETTERS 

1921 




AMERICAN ACADEMY OF 

ARTS AND LETTERS 

1922 






Copyright, 1922, by 
The American Academy of Arts and Letters y 



THE DE V1NNE PRESS 
NEW YORK 



AUG -2 1922 V~ 

"©CI.A681174 



BARRETT WENDELL 

By James Ford Rhodes 

Barrett Wendell died in his sixty- 
sixth year (February 8, 192 1) — too 
soon for an American scholar to pass 
away. "A good book is the precious 
life-blood of a master spirit," declared 
Milton, and so must be regarded 
Wendell's The Traditions of European 
Literature, published in the autumn of 
1920, only a few months before his 
death. In it is shown an acquaintance 
with classic writings and, what is more 
wonderful, a knowledge of the tradi- 
tions of the Middle Ages. The book 
ends with Dante, and it was Wendell's 
intention to bring his treatise through 
modern times. Would not his treat- 



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THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



ment of Shakespeare have been inter- 
esting, who, so Wendell wrote, "cre- 
ated a greater number and variety of 
living characters than any other writer 
in modern literature" ; and with the 
universality of his taste our critic 
would have pointed out that our Mark 
Twain had created for us in Huckle- 
berry Finn the Don Quixote of Amer- 
ican life, a character that might rival 
in some degree the portraits which 
Shakespeare drew in his comedies. 

Wendell read histories, which "make 
men wise." He wrote, "For narrative 
skill and sustained interest, Herodotus 
remains enduringly excellent; for 
thoughtful and animated statement of 
contemporary fact, no writer has ex- 
celled Thucydides." As every one 
knows his Herodotus and Thucydides, 
one is led to accept Wendell's charac- 
terization of our American historians. 
He spoke of Bancroft's "diffuse florid- 
ity" of style, of Motley's "sincerely 



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partisan temper/' He said that Pres- 
cott combined "substantial truth with 
literary spirit/'. Parkman had "full 
sympathy for both sides, untiring in- 
dustry in the accumulation of mate- 
rial/' judicial good sense, and a style 
that finally became "a model of sound 
prose." 

So much for Wendell, the scholar. 
He wrote many books, and no one will 
be censured who deems The France of 
To-day the best, as it is the most cele- 
brated. He was the first lecturer on 
the Hyde Foundation at the Sorbonne 
and other French universities, and the 
scholar, as we see him in The Tradi- 
tions and in the Literary History of 
America, then became a keen observer, 
as was de Tocqueville during his brief 
visit to the United States. Entering 
the best society, assisted in the way 
that only a woman can by his devoted 
wife, he has given a picture of French 
society that is original and that has 




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commended itself to all sympathizing 
Americans. It is needless to say that 
the French look upon the book as a 
model of clear thinking and thorough 
comprehension. He tackled indirectly 
the question that has puzzled many, 
why, if "French women are among the 
best creatures a good God ever made, 
should they not appear so in French 
literature ?" The answer was given in 
the words of Maupassant, 'Thonnete 
femme n'a pas de roman." 

American literature numbers among 
her worthies James Russell Lowell, 
and an article on him as a teacher came 
from Wendell's pen in Scribner's 
Magazine (November, 1891) shortly 
after Lowell's death. Wendell knew 
whereof he wrote. A lecture of 
Charles Eliot Norton had excited in 
him the desire, while an undergraduate 
at Harvard, to become a member of 
Lowell's Dante class, and to the scholar 
and observer was joined the listener 




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who would learn the method of teach- 
ing from him who proved an exem- 
plar. He said to Lowell, "You are the 
most inspiring teacher I ever had." 
Lowell "knew literature and knew the 
world" ; and so did Barrett Wendell. 


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AUG I 8 1922 



